The origins of the Order of Extreme Valour lie as far back as the timeless games of “who can creep closest to the sleeping woolly mammoth?” and “who wants to throw a rock at the wasp’s nest?”, closely followed by the novel game of “who can run away the fastest without tripping over their own feet?”. Notable sources of inspiration for the Order include The 300 (“who can fight the most Persians at once?”), William Tell (“who can hit an apple on top of someone’s head?”), Julius Caesar (“who can get stabbed by the most knives?”), and Bear Grylls (“who can drink their own piss?”).

This, however, is 2012. June 2012, to be precise, when the greatest competition on Earth is kicking off. Not Euro 2012 of course – It’s Euro 2012 Fantasy Football! The objective of the Order is to reward risk-taking. Gambling, punting, chancing, you name it. Specifically, we will award the Order of Extreme Valour on the final day of every Matchday to the individual manager who takes the riskiest SUCCESSFUL GAMBLE of that matchday. (Discretion is the best part of valour, remember?) Separate awards will be made for the Euro 2012 and Friendly World Cup competitions, and there is no limit to how many times someone can win the award. Awards will be made based on final teams at the end of the Matchday.

A “successful gamble” is defined as a single player choice that returns an unexpectedly high number of points. Only players selected by a maximum of 10% of participating managers (3 from 32) will be considered.

The awards will be given on these criteria:

Underappreciation – The more they’re expected to score, the less they are considered. Low ownership is a great indicator – Ola Toivonen, your time is now – although picking a popular player who is generally despised by serious fantasy players counts too.

Overachievement – The player needs to score more points than expected, the more the better. Stewart Downing scoring a goal – that would give us some serious thinking to do. But it’s not just restricted to attackers. Sean St Ledger keeping a clean sheet against Spain would be unexpected, for example, and would merit consideration.

Underdog – Weaker teams have less support for a player, making their feats all the more remarkable. Everybody loves an underdog story, and we’ll reward it.

Captaincy – If the captaincy remains on the player at the end of the Matchday, this will earn brownie points for sheer audacity.

We will also give “honorary mentions” to those managers who were particularly close in the running. Good luck, be brave, and we look forward to presenting the Matchday 1 awards on the evening of Monday 11th June!